Changing the Conversation Messages for Improving Public Understanding of Engineering (2008) / Chapter Skim
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4 Conclusions and Recommendations
4 Conclusions and Recommendations
Pages 97-106
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From page 97... ...
One unanticipated benefit of engaging outside professionals was that committee members were encouraged, indeed obliged, to become educated about the processes, benefits, and limitations of message development and testing. Another was that our many interactions with Bemporad Baranowski Marketing Group/Global Strategy Group led to a relationship of trust and mutual respect that facilitated our dialog about complex, sometimes difficult, issues.
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From page 98... ...
In the third section, the committee proposes an ambitious, long-term initiative -- the development and implementation of a large-scale communications "campaign." Using the Positioning Statement, Messages, and Taglines We live in a society inundated with information and messages. More than 25 years ago, advertising experts Al Ries and Jack Trout lamented, "There's a traffic jam on the turnpikes of the mind" (Ries and Trout, 1981)
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From page 99... ...
Our testing also showed that the least appealing of five tested messages was the one that portrayed engineers as "connecting science to the real world." From this, we concluded that, if we continue to overly emphasize math and science in marketing or rebranding engineering, we are likely to alienate or scare off youngsters, rather than attract them to engineering. We believe the same can be said about messages that focus on the practical benefits of being an engineer rather than the inspirational, optimistic aspects of engineering.
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From page 100... ...
This approach will not only appeal to the higher aspirations of young people, but will also place math and science skills, correctly, as one of a variety of skills and BOX 4-1 A Positioning Statement for Engineering No profession unleashes the spirit of innovation like engineering. From research to real-world applications, engineers constantly dis cover how to improve our lives by creating bold new solutions that connect science to life in unexpected, forward-thinking ways.
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From page 101... ...
Our research does not, and should not, preclude others from pursuing additional message development, but the committee believes that the rigorous process we used to generate our messages justifies their widespread use. In February 2008, the National Academy of Engineering launched a new website, Engineer Your Life (www.engineeryourlife.org)
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From page 102... ...
In the interest of encouraging coordination among outreach activities, the results of this research should be made widely available to the engineering community. Creating a Shared Public-relations Resource Engineering societies, universities, technology-based firms, federal laboratories, museums, and other organizations currently spend more than $400 million annually to promote public awareness of engineering (Davis and Gibbin, 2002)
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From page 103... ...
; • outreach to young people, parents, educators, guidance coun selors, and the media; and • media training for ambassadors or spokespersons. A campaign of the size and duration that will have a measurable impact on the public understanding of engineering will require significant resources.
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From page 104... ...
A representative cross section of the engineering community should convene to consider funding, logistics, and other aspects of a coordinated, multiyear communications campaign to improve the public understanding of engineering. A Final Word The project described in this report was conducted according to a carefully designed process for developing messages to improve the public understanding of engineering.
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From page 105... ...
The most significant outcome of this project is the recasting of engineering as articulated in the positioning statement. If this statement were adopted by the engineering community, as urged in Recommendation 1, we can not only reshape the self-images of engineers, but also empower engineers to communicate more confidently with the public.
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